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Firefighting

The struggle to tame fire began when humankind first harnessed flames to cook food, warm the environment and build tools. From the firefighting soldiers of the Roman empire to the bucket brigades of the Middle Ages and the high-technology equipment used by firefighters today, the battle to contain destructive fires has continued against a backdrop of cataclysmic fires that have shaped civilization itself. This work presents the fascinating in-depth stories behind great fires in world history, together with profiles of the people who fought fires or made them happen, and also traces the evolution of firefighting technology. Illustrated with more than 500 photographs that highlight key moments in fire history, the book covers everything from the Great Fire of London in 1666 - which caused untold damage to the city, but destroyed the plague-carrying rats and spurred the formation of the first fire insurance companies - the conflagrations in Colonial America that burned down young cities but led to improvements in fire engines and sprinkler systems. The book sheds light on devastating fires in hotels, factories, theatres, ships, schools, nightclubs and other public places - catalysts for fire codes and regulations that make our world safer today. "Firefighting" also covers the continuing fight against wildfires that consume billions of acres of land on almost every continent, disastrous building fires, and what happens when fire is used as a weapon of war. Also featured is a special section on what makes fires so deadly, including the physics behind backdrafts and flashovers, and how arson investigators approach a fire scene. In addition, there is an illustrated history of fire equipment, fire engines and firefighters' gear and a behind-the-scenes look at the training techniques used by today's cutting-edge firefighters.

Photo by Paul Sever.

In this photo, taken late in the day, you can see crewmen moving away from the ship, bent over and angling away from the tail rotor. Stay away from tail rotors. Really. Everyone worries about the main rotor, but that tail rotor will slice you into mounds and mounds of julienne fries a heartbeat.

We always carried our hard hats under our arms when getting on or off a ship. That was so the hard hat wouldn't be sucked up into the main rotor. Such a mishap would damage the rotor, of course, but of even greater concern was the fact that your natural reaction would be to reach for your hard hat as it was sucked upward. Then you might be tagged with a nickname along the lines of "Stumpy" or "No Dome," depending on how instinctive your love for your hat.

We almost always referred to helicopters as "ships," though I can't say why. Sometimes we would say "helicopters" or even "aircraft," but we never, ever called them "choppers." That was bad form.

When we flew in helicopters, we always wore our yellow Nomex shirts with the sleeves rolled down, every button fastened, and our collars turned up. No jackets or sweaters on top of the Nomex, gloves on, and hard hats strapped on tight once inside the ship. The idea was that if you survived a crash (fat chance), wearing your Nomex might keep you from ending up the identical twin of "Major Burns," the hairless, faceless former Army helicopter pilot who narrated the “Don't Do What I Did” helicopter safety film we used to watch when life in the Loft grew dull.

The Bell 214 was a big ship, carrying about 10 passengers plus the pilot and a Helitack crewman. Helitack are U.S. Forest Service fire fighters who specialize in flying out on helicopters to fight small fires on their own districts. On big fires they are responsible for building and managing helispots and for the loading and unloading of helicopters. Unlike helitack, the pilots who fly helicopters for the Forest Service, as well as the people who fuel and maintain the helicopters, are civilian contract employees. We typically flew in Bell Jet Rangers, which could carry three passengers plus the pilot. We called the Jet Ranger the "Death Ranger" because it was easy to overload, especially at high altitude in hot weather. It was the Helitack's job to keep from overloading the ship, but most pogues on hotshot crews know how much a Jet Ranger can carry, how much their bodies and gear weigh, and how to add, so we didn't entirely trust our lives to strange Helitack folk. I remember Shep Crim, one of our heavies, jumping up and sprinting over to a female Helitacker (who, as a class, are inevitably referred to as "Helibitches") to insist that she substitute a lightweight for one of the two fellow heavies scheduled to fly with him on the next load. One of our pogues observed, "You don't see Shep move that fast every day." Charlie Young replied, "That's because you don't see Shep marked for death every day."

One of the helicopter pilots on the Sagehen Fire had a basset hound named Fred. Except for the drug-sniffing dogs they use in California fire camps, you don't often see dogs at fires, so the hound made an impression on us. One of the guys on our crew was named Fred Miller, and after that fire he was known as "Fred Not the Dog." The two-legged Fred eventually went over to the Park Service crew in Kings Canyon-Sequoia. I think the nickname spurred his decision to change crews. Or it could have been the other nickname he earned later that same fire season. We were on a hot, running sagebrush fire, working hard to punch in a line and pinch off the fire before it beat us to a steep uphill slope and really took off. Fred, who was our sawyer at the time, was having a hell of a time cutting brush in front of the diggers. He would saw and saw, and nothing would happen. The diggers had to move ahead of the saw, chopping brush as best they could with Pulaskis and cursing Fred without mercy. Finally, Dan Parsons, who was Fred's pimp (i.e. sawyer's assistant) figured out that Fred had put the saw's chain on backwards. From that incident Fred picked up a second nickname: “Derf.” Last I heard of Fred Not the Dog, he had gone to chef's school and opened up his own restaurant somewhere. Perhaps in Mississippi, his home state. Fred was actually a pretty decent guy, and I feel ashamed that I joined everyone else in harassing the poor guy. That was pretty bastardly of me. Fire crews can take on an adolescent locker-room atmosphere, especially when there are few or no women on a crew. As someone who was himself picked on in more than one adolescent locker room, I should be, and am, doubly ashamed. My apologies, Fred.

Photo by George Ragan.

The dramatis personae in the above photo: On the right is Heidi Das Gupta. The person in the middle of the photo is Donald Barclay. On the left is Rick Squires, who was known as “Spanky” but who doesn't like that name any more. Rick was still in the fire business, working as a dispatcher at the National Interagency Fire Center, last I heard.

There is a story to the above photo. We'd been mopping up for several days, and it was getting pretty miserable. We were dirty, tired, and it was starting to rain off and on. The entire crew had taken a seat on the steep, rocky slope, when some green shirt came up and said that he had located a bunch of smokes that needed to be worked. We all stood up and started following this green shirt, walking for something like an hour before we came to a big rock. The green shirt told us to take a break while he scouted ahead for the elusive smokes. After sitting for a few minutes one of the guys—Dan Schmidt—went around the other side of the big rock for a piss. When he came back, he gave us the news. The other side of the big rock was the place where we had been sitting when we started following the green shirt. The asshole had walked us all the way around the mountain and back to where we had started. Uncle Smoky didn't get a hell of a lot of work out of us the rest of that day.

Dan Schmidt, a graduate of Stanford, was a smart and fairly serious guy—though not above going out with the boys for the occasional laugh and drink. I remember hitting the fire bottle with Dan more than once. He was also a pretty good volleyball player. He might have played volleyball in college, though he was too short to have been a really first-rank college player. Last I heard, Dan was a physician in Spokane.

Firefighter Michael McGinnis is no stranger to intense situations. Veteran of New York’s Ladder Twenty-One Company as a search and rescue man, he has seen his share of burning infernos, high-rise saves, and intense emergency situations. Despite McGinnis’ years on the job, nothing can prepare him for getting tangled in his brother’s mistakes as a drug addict and gambler, especially when a blood thirsty bookie gets involved. A romance sparks between him and fellow paramedic, Eva Crisante, catching him even more off guard. Morals are tested, lies are told, and relationships are built and then torn to ruins. The problems ahead are more challenging than any fire McGinnis has experienced. He learns that bravery is not only needed in his job with the department, but also in dire situations away from work. His tough love for his brother is tested, proving that there truly are things more dangerous than a five-alarm fire.

Firefighter Michael McGinnis is no stranger to intense situations. Veteran of New York’s Ladder Twenty-One Company as a search and rescue man, he has seen his share of burning infernos, high-rise saves, and intense emergency situations. Despite McGinnis’ years on the job, nothing can prepare him for getting tangled in his brother’s mistakes as a drug addict and gambler, especially when a blood thirsty bookie gets involved. A romance sparks between him and fellow paramedic, Eva Crisante, catching him even more off guard. Morals are tested, lies are told, and relationships are built and then torn to ruins. The problems ahead are more challenging than any fire McGinnis has experienced. He learns that bravery is not only needed in his job with the department, but also in dire situations away from work. His tough love for his brother is tested, proving that there truly are things more dangerous than a five-alarm fire.

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